Today I took a tour of the the new met tower at the Staples Corporate Headquarters in Framingham. A few months back, I testified in favor of allowing Staples to explore this technology during ZBA hearings and ever since they got approval, I’ve been very curious to see how it is coming along. Ever since it got installed a couple of months ago, I’ve been looking for it from the Mass Pike, Route 9 and all the public streets in the area. I couldn’t find it. Turns out we probably won’t be able to see it from those areas until the leaves fall off the trees. However it is visible from inside the Staples Building, and of course when you walk up the hill to where it is located.
For those who don’t know, “met tower” is short for meteorological tower. Erecting a met tower is the the first step in figuring out how much wind is in the area. They hold instruments that gather data to measure wind frequency, wind direction and wind speed. The goal is to find out how viable a turbine would be in that location.
At 180 feet, the Staples met tower is about two thirds the size of what the the actual height of the proposed turbine would be. It’ll be interesting to see how much wind is there at the end of the 6 month test period.
This is the view from the second floor of the Staples Corporate Headquarters
The met tower is that faint pole rising above the tree line just to the left of the building.
This is the what it looks like from the base.
Kate and Elliot having a little fun at the met tower.